


Are you okay?

by jujubiest



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Coda, Dysfunctional Relationships, Episode Related, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 16:42:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3616941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three words take Liz back to a time when she felt safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Are you okay?

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to sincerely apologize to the entire world. I have no idea what possessed me to do this. Coda to 2x16.

"Are you okay?" he asks, and she answers with a question: "Where are you?"

A pause. Then: “Are you okay?” Insistently, like the answer matters to him. And she can’t speak because the answer is no, she’s about as far from okay as she can remember being in her life. Considering what her life has been for the last two years, that’s really saying something.

And in her mind she’s traveling back to places she swore she’d never go again, back to their bright, cheerful apartment with its artfully eclectic furniture, every piece picked out together at thrift stores, garage sales, and quaint little local boutiques. She’s a happy person with an exciting new life ahead of her, a wife and an FBI profiler and a mom. Family and career…she’s going to have it all.

She’s terrified, curled up on the couch at three a.m. with her arms wrapped around her knees, long hair falling over one shoulder in a messy braid, trying to hold it together as the doubt slowly steals in that she can’t do it. That there’s no way she’ll really get to have it all.

His voice had come soft out of the darkness of the hallway, the same words. “Are you alright?” And she’d looked up as his face pulled away from the shadows and felt the shaking inside go quiet again. Just having him there, asking…that had been enough to allow her to honestly say yes.

She misses that. Right now, she needs it. Maybe Tom Keen was a lie, but the way she’d felt, at least, had been real.

"Tom," she says softly, hoping he can somehow be that person again, just for a moment: the one who knows just from her voice what she really needs. "Where are you?"

Another pause. Half a sigh. His voice sounds rueful as he gives her an address, like he’s already regretting it.

She knows the feeling. She also knows it’s not going to stop her from going.


End file.
